JAMES Wins the Pulitzer & Moms, Dads, and Grads Recommendations Part 2

Summary

Podcast Summary: Book Riot - The Podcast

Episode: JAMES Wins the Pulitzer & Moms, Dads, and Grads Recommendations Part 2
Release Date: May 7, 2025
Hosts: Jeff O’Neill and Rebecca Schinsky

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Introduction

In this episode of Book Riot's "The Podcast," hosts Jeff O’Neill and Rebecca Schinsky dive deep into the latest Pulitzer Prize announcements, focusing especially on the unexpected win of Percival Everett’s novel James in the Fiction category. Additionally, they address various book recommendations catering to listeners navigating major life transitions such as marriage, parenting, and graduation.

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1. Rebecca Schinsky’s Bold Prediction

Rebecca kickstarts the conversation by sharing her confident prediction that Percival Everett’s James would secure the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She even went the extra mile by pre-recording an Instagram reel to celebrate the anticipated win.

Rebecca Schinsky [01:04]:
"I felt pretty sure. [...] I really felt good about it."

2. James Clinches the Pulitzer Prize

Jeff expresses his excitement over James winning the Pulitzer, highlighting the significance of Rebecca’s accurate prediction.

Jeff O’Neill [02:13]:
"So thrilled that James won."

Rebecca reiterates her delight, emphasizing the book's deserving nature.

Rebecca Schinsky [02:16]:
"Delighted."

3. Unprecedented Pulitzer Finalists

The hosts discuss the unusual aspect of having three finalists in the Fiction category this year, diverging from the typical two. This anomaly raises questions about the selection process and the committee's decision-making.

Jeff O’Neill [02:21]:
"Did you see this Lithub piece? [...] the committee requested the final."

Rebecca adds her observations about the finalists' obscurity compared to James.

Rebecca Schinsky [04:06]:
"Or mice 1961 by Stacy Levine from Verse Chorus Press. Hadn't heard of that one either."

4. Analyzing the Selection Process

Jeff speculates that the prominence and sales of James might have influenced the Pulitzer board's decision, overshadowing the more obscure finalists. He questions whether the judges were more familiar with James compared to the other contenders.

Jeff O’Neill [04:46]:
"In a lot of years, I'm guessing a lot of the Pulitzer board people haven't read any of the finalists once they're sort of handed the slate of books."

Rebecca concurs, mentioning the challenges the committee faces in thoroughly assessing each finalist.

Rebecca Schinsky [06:01]:
"Most of the books that are going to be useful in this zone are generally going to be the things that are like, here's how to think about this..."

5. Broader Pulitzer Category Highlights

Beyond Fiction, the hosts touch upon other categories such as History and Biography, noting that the finalists often hail from prestigious presses and are academically rigorous, contrasting sharply with James’ mainstream appeal.

6. Listener Book Recommendations

The podcast transitions to addressing listener requests, providing tailored book suggestions across various genres and needs.

a. Recommendations for Summer Travel Reads

Listener Request: Brianna seeks engaging, non-mystery books suitable for a 5-6 hour read during summer travel.

Jeff’s Suggestions [17:35]:

• This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub
• Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Rebecca’s Suggestions [18:51]:

• Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby
• Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

b. Non-Fiction for Marriage Preparation

Listener Request: Heather, preparing for marriage, seeks non-fiction books offering wisdom and guidance.

Rebecca’s Suggestions [22:08]:

• Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give by Ada Calhoun
• Tell Me More by Kelly Corrigan

Jeff’s Additions [24:01]:

• Listen by Katherine Mannix
• Drop the Ball by Tiffany Dufu

c. Overcoming a Reading Slump for a Middle School Teacher

Listener Request: Jessica, a middle school teacher, seeks books to reignite her reading habit, preferring non-mystery genres.

Rebecca’s Suggestions [31:49]:

• Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby
• Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

d. Engaging Books for New Parents

Listener Request: Beth seeks engaging yet not overly demanding books to enjoy while caring for a new baby.

Jeff’s Suggestions [57:44]:

• Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
• Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

Rebecca’s Suggestions [57:44]:

• Deep Cuts by Holly Blackley
• Princess in Black by Shannon Hale (for younger children)

e. Books on the Publishing Industry

Listener Request: Jillian desires non-fiction books about the publishing industry.

Jeff’s Suggestions [40:36]:

• The Merchants of Culture by John Thompson
• Big Fiction by Dan Sinikin

Rebecca’s Suggestions [41:40]:

• Emphasizes Big Fiction for a comprehensive overview.

f. Expanding Literary Horizons for Diverse Interests

Listener Request: A listener aims to read more widely, including translations and literary works.

Rebecca’s Suggestions [62:56]:

• Beauty Land by Marie Helene Bertino

Jeff’s Additions [64:22]:

• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

g. Engaging Books Blending Pacing with Political Themes

Listener Request: A future husband seeks books with good pacing that also delve into political or larger societal issues.

Rebecca’s Suggestions [66:39]:

• Who is Government? edited by Michael Lewis
• Searches by Vaheini Vara

Jeff’s Additions [66:56]:

• Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

h. Books Similar to A Daughter of the Forest

Listener Request: Grace seeks books steeped in folklore similar to Game of Thrones and Kashiel's Dart.

Jeff’s Suggestions [60:18]:

• The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
• The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler

Rebecca’s Suggestions [61:09]:

• Exit Zero by Marie Helene Bertino
• We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Berry

i. Books for Traveling to Corsica

Listener Request: A listener planning a trip to Corsica seeks fiction or non-fiction books set on the island.

Jeff’s Suggestion [69:01]:

• The Corsican Caper People by Peter Mayle

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7. Conclusion and Future Episodes

As the episode wraps up, Jeff and Rebecca hint at upcoming topics, including a fantasy book league and more personalized recommendations. They encourage listeners to share their reading experiences and continue engaging with the podcast for diverse literary insights.

Jeff O’Neill [85:47]:
"We always like to know how the little baby recommendations went in the wild."

Rebecca Schinsky [85:47]:
"Good luck to y’all out there."

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Notable Quotes

• Rebecca Schinsky [01:23]:
  "I really felt good about it. So I went for it and then I had a brief, oh my God, did I jinx it?"

• Jeff O’Neill [07:58]:
  "This is conclave. Conclave for books is what we've got right here."

• Rebecca Schinsky [24:30]:
  "And with everything going on, she's gotten really into whodunit."

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a comprehensive analysis of the Pulitzer Prize’s unconventional choices, particularly highlighting James by Percival Everett. The hosts provide insightful commentary on the selection process's nuances and extend their expertise to offer personalized book recommendations, catering to a diverse array of listener needs. Jeff and Rebecca's engaging conversation ensures that even those unfamiliar with the podcast can grasp the key discussions and explore new literary avenues based on their thoughtful advice.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Jeff O'Neill]

Subject to availability valid on select items only. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You might say all kinds of stuff when things go wrong, but these are the words you really need to remember. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They've got options to fit your unique insurance needs, meaning you can talk to your agent to choose the coverage you need. Have coverage options to protect the things you value most, File a claim right on the State Farm mobile app and even reach a real person when you need to talk to someone. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This is the Book Riot podcast. I'm Jeff O'Neill.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I'm Rebecca Schinsky.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And Rebecca, you called your shot yesterday.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I did.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You even went so far as to pre record Instagram reel for it, which when I told that to Michelle she was like, wow. Like I don't know if she thought it was like carving out Mount Rushmore or what, but still you called it, you were, you were that you were really that confident.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I felt pretty sure. And of course what we're talking about is that Percival Everett would win the Pulitzer for fiction for James. I was just going to be really surprised, which the Pulitzers can be surprising. But I wanted to have it ready to go if he was going to win. And I thought it was worth, you know, just spend the time make the video. If he had not gotten it like we, I would have hopped to and made a new video about whoever had won it. Probably trying to put my face together about that. It wasn't Percival Everett. It was. I'm not going to write obituaries of people in advance. We don't have to be that coordinated at Book Riot the way they do at the New York Times. But I, I just, I really felt good about it. So I went for it and then I had a brief, oh my God, did I jinx it? And then I had a wait. No, they've already made the decision. So it's fine, it's fine.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So thrilled that James won.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Delighted.

[Jeff O'Neill]

There Is a wrinkle here. Did you see this Lithub piece?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

No.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Did you notice that there are three finalists for.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I did, yes. So I noted yesterday during the announcement, like four finalists is unusual. Did they give three and then the committee requested the final.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't have the link in front of me right now, but I'll put it in the show notes. That is what a writer at Lithub is wondering what happened here. Because in the bylaws for. The thing is that there's a smaller pool of judges that recommend to the full Pulitzer board.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Pick one of these. Why would there be three finalists? A winner in three finalists. So four books.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

This is not in any of the other ones. The. The other weird thing is this year is there's two winners for. Let's see, what is the co winners for history. We'll get to some of the others. But I am pretty compelled like by this because. And I'll tell you why. One is that James is very well regarded, respected and known. And the other three finalists are pretty obscure. And I can absolutely see a situation in which the board was like, what are you. What are you doing? Where's James? We don't. We don't know what Headshot by Rita Bullwinkle, which we. Go ahead. So there you go.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. I was like. When I saw that there were four finalists, my first thought was, oh, maybe they're going to give a double award again this year. Like, because that happened a few years ago. There were the year that demon Copperhead won it shared the award and that was possible. But I. It's just been a busy day today, so I had not gotten into the analysis, but I think this theory holds water. Yeah. The finalists, as you were saying, are Headshot by Rita Bullwinkle. Which great novel. We both really liked it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Creative, interesting. Not like a game changer in the way that you kind of want the Pulitzer Prize winning novel to be. You're not significant. I don't think that. That a headshot is going to turn out to have been significant in the long arc of history. The Unicorn Woman by Gail Jones, which is from Beacon Press. I don't know any about that one. Or mice 1961 by Stacy Levine from Verse Chorus Press. Hadn't heard of that one either. So if the thinking here is those three were the three that the committee put forward and the Pulitzer board might have said, all right, let's. Let's take another pass. We don't want to do 2012, so give us a fourth one. And they came back with James. Interesting.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's interesting. I mean, I like Gail Jones. I read her last two books. I had not read the Unicorn Woman. I don't know anything about. Well, I now know what I looked up About Mice, 1961, which is about twin sisters and their orphan twin sisters and their housekeeper. I don't know. Seems kind of like an interesting book. And the Pulitzers, again, here's a hypothesis. We don't know. Will someone comment? I bet, I bet this is going to come out. Having not read the other two books, I can't say James deserved to win so on and so forth. But I am pleased to see James 1. I could certainly understand the Pulitzer board. Here's the truth. In a lot of years, I'm guessing a lot of the Pulitzer board people haven't read any of the finalists once they're sort of handed the slate of books.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, I think that's probably fair.

[Jeff O'Neill]

But with James, it sold enough copies. And with Everett in American Fiction and everything going on, that's the kind of room that people were going to give it a shot and try James, try Priscilla, maybe even heard of it. Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Or say what about if they had read it in their spare time? Just because the profile of the book was so big, you're kind of holding that in the back of your mind as a comp that the other, that the three finalists you're handed are competing against kind of it book style.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Does it knock all three of these books out?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And so if this is what happened and some of the Pulitzer board had already read James and were coming through headshot and mice, 1961 and the unicorn Woman with that comparison to James going on in the background, I can totally see how that might happen. I don't know. This is the most surprising lineup of finalists of all of the book awards. It's. They consistently will have something that like not just that we haven't heard of, but that like most readers have not heard of. It'll be small presses. It'll be things that happen by surprise. I think this is by virtue of they're reading hundreds and hundreds of books and it is a three person committee.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So if you get one person who's like super stoked about one of the titles and can convince the other two to read it and they get on board. You know, it's. This is a huge task. How many of the books do they even feel compelled to finish? I don't know. Because you're trying to, you're trying to knock things out pretty quickly. Like to determine. Oh yeah, this is not. I don't need to finish this because it's not going to be a contender, I bet you. I think you're right. Somebody will talk at some point. People certainly talked in 2012 and there was no award given. Members of the committee filled afterwards and that'd be interesting to see what comes out.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I can't see who the fiction. I can't find who the fiction judges were. The full board is well known. I mean it's a who's who. It's like the editor of the Boston Globe and yeah, yeah. David Remnick of the New Yorker and Jelani Cobb and Carlos Lozado. Like there's all bunch of people that are serious people. All. I would guess all of them have heard of James and Percival Everett and that's unusual for the kinds of books that's going to be here and maybe someone caped for them. I don't know. I don't know what the politics. I don't know what the. If you're the jury, are you torqued off. Does the whole board read all three finalists in all these books in all these categories? That would seem like an impossible. I just don't know how much follow through they require. And everything goes again. I don't want to throw water on the James story because it is exciting, but this is conclave. Conclave for books is what we've got right here.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

There is some sort of palace intrigue happening or it certainly seems like it's possible that there was something very interesting.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Very interesting to see happen going on there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But nice, really nice moment for Headshot. And the other one that I just wanted to call out was that one of the finalists for memoir and autobiography was I Heard Her Call by Name by Lucy Sant, which I think you got to first and said, oh my gosh, the audio is incredible. It is a, it's a wonderful reading experience. But man, that audiobook is phenomenal.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Let's see in the other book related categories in history, I never know these. A lot of university presses, Oxford University Press, one shared in history, but also finalist University of Chicago Press in biography. Every Living Thing, the Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life, a double biography of Carl Linnaeus and George Louis de Buffon, 18th century plant biologists. And if I didn't know this book existed or I would have read this book already.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, this looks kind of right up both of our alleys.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Also a very cool book. The World she edited. Catherine S. White at the New Yorker by Amy Reading was the finalist of Biography. That book was extremely good as well. The winner in memoir, in Biography, interestingly, was a graphic novel. Graphic memoir, Pardon Me by Tessa Hulls from mcd, which we've shouted out there before. General nonfiction to discuss our hopeless to the success of our hopeless cause. The many lives of the Soviet dissent movement. That's also Princeton, also University Press Princeton. A finalist was from Harvard University there. Until I find you. Yeah, I mean pretty beside James, a pretty high brow all things considered list across the board. I'm not sure we didn't know all fours. Like what are we. What else are we thinking?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. No off.

[Jeff O'Neill]

No Martyr. Kind of the hits from last year that we talked about.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Martyr is more in the Pulitzer zone than all fours is. I would have been so surprised to see all fours that really I think would have been a product of idiosyncratic jury members for. For the Pulitzer's overall vibe. Kind of in the way that in the drama category I was surprised but delighted to see Omari by Cole Escola show up, which is just a really bold kind of brazen out there performance, but not the like. It's the kind of thing the Pulitzers would acknowledge but not the kind of thing that you typically see when a Pulitzer.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And again, maybe I had read the lithub piece before looking at the citations and so I was reading these commendation for James with a. I don't know, a jaundiced eye. And James is described as an accomplished reconsideration of Huckleberry Finn. Does that seem a little softish on the whammy bar there when words like.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Magisterial are available to you? Master accomplished reconsideration.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That that is. Were that written at. Was that written at pinpoint or somebody's.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Googling like synonyms for. It's not the worst.

[Jeff O'Neill]

A redoubtable choice as they say in the West Wing. Yeah, it's not the. That that felt very staged, I guess is one way of putting that particular.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, yeah. It's not the most superlative of superlatives.

[Jeff O'Neill]

One of the shortest in terms of word count of any of the commendations in the book prize. Anyway. I don't want to read into it and James is well deserved. But wow, is that an interesting little wrinkle to get.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Really gonna want the tea on that one.

[Jeff O'Neill]

On that. Anything else you want to say about the Pulitzer Prizes before we move on and talk about the wrap up, the.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Official end of book award season. The Pulitzers are the end of the awards for the previous year. And next week on the show in the main feed we will be composing our Fantasy books league, right where we'll be joined by Sharifah and Laura McGrath of Bookstats fame. Y'all really loved hearing her on here and we've had a great time talking with her. So she's gonna the four of us are each going to compose a team of 12 titles that earn points based on things like getting nominated for major awards, making it onto best books of the year list, that kind of thing. And we're gonna be now getting into 2025 titles and our SC for that will end with the Pulitzers in 2026. Here we go. New season.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It seems an impossible task right now. When James came out in March of last year, you're like, ah, you could see it right now. I'm looking at some and I'm like, wow, it's a long time to go.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I'm real glad that we're going to have two opportunities later in the year to change up our teams as more books come out and the year develops because it is feeling quite challenging here. With less than half of the year under my belt to guess about, you know, what's going to go big. Especially we haven't had like very many big hits this year so far. It's getting a little tough to guess about what the best books of the year listen.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And speaking of forward looking things in the podcast, actually it'll be coming out the day after this goes in the main feed. Bonus preview of the summer new release draft in which Rebecca and I take we bite off the first chunk of the of the summer and really start processing. There's some things there that I have my, you know, I'm taking their weights and measures. I see what their 40 time is interviewing their family and friends doing that urine samples all across the board. Okay, after the break we're going to finish up with our moms, dads and grads recommendations right after this word.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This episode is sponsored by Truth Demands by Abby Reyes. Stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audiobook provided by our sponsors at North Atlantic Books. In 1999, Abby Reyes lost her partner as he and two others were murdered after departing Kaka Ica, the heart of the world of indigenous UWA territory in Colombia spanning three decades and three three continents. Truth Demands charts Abby's journeys as she navigates the waters of loss and impermanence while fighting for truth and accountability from Big Oil. The book is a haunting and profound memoir. It's available wherever you purchase your books. Now again, pick up Truce Demands a Memoir of Murder, Oil wars and the Rise of Climate justice by Abby Reyes. Wherever books and audiobooks are sold, stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audio edition. Foreign.

[C]

Is brought to you by Camcat Books, publishers of the Premonitions Club by Gwendolyn Womack When Liv hall and her friends find boxes of letters hidden in her grandfather's attic, they discover hundreds of psychic predictions addressed to the Premonitions Bureau, a bureau to investigate psychic abilities that mysteriously closed in 1993. A post online about the found predictions alerts a black ops group in charge of the military's paranormal research who will do anything to get their hands on the letters. Liv and her friends now know too much. To survive, they're going to have to rely on each other and the unlikely help of psychics who thought they left the dangers of the Bureau behind forever. Now, let me. Let me give you a little tea on this. The author of the Premonitions Club was inspired to write this book by the discovery of a real Premonitions bureau that used to exist from the late 60s to the early 90s. And they researched psychic predictions. If you said girl, what I did too. Let's pick up the Premonitions Club by Gwendolyn Womack so we can get to the bottom of this mystery together. And thanks again to Camcat Books for sponsoring this episode. Today's episode is brought to you by 8th Note Press, publishers of the Chicago Heartbreaker series by Ali Wiegand. The first book in the series, aptly titled First Base, follows photographer Maggie, whose last love ended in tragedy. So she's content to focus on her job, snapping shots of Chicago's MLB team instead of her love life. But Maggie's throwing a curveball when the team signs Tommy, a tattooed hotshot whose talent for making plays is matched by a playboy reputation. Okay, when an out of context photo of the two of them goes viral, the PR team devises a plan fake a public established romance until the fuss dies down. But as their fake romance plays out in the spotlight, real feelings arise. Thing is, Maggie's already loved and lost and Tommy's never learned to commit. So can they make it past first base? First base is followed up by the book Going for Two, where a physical therapist and a star quarterback must overcome their difference in growing attraction to prepare the quarterback for his super bowl run. Make sure to check out the series. And thanks again to 8th Note Press for sponsoring this episode.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay, Rebecca, where were we? Do you remember?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, a little bit left to do here. Yeah, we've got a Good number. I think we can mop them up here. This one is from Brianna, who is looking for recommendations for good airplane books for upcoming summer travel. She's looking for the kind of book you can get into and knock out in five or six hours. Obviously mysteries and thrillers are often recommended for this, but she doesn't love mysteries or thrillers. I don't mind a mystery element and I can get into a good literary mystery like Happiness Falls, God of the woods or all the Colors of the Dark. But the true like mystery genre books are not Brianna's preferred. So we're looking for recommendations that are non mystery. Really like binge read kinds of quality stuff here.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. So I went, I have a couple of ideas. One is, and I don't know why I thought of this. Who knows how these things burble up through the transom of your mind. This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub, which is a. It's a novel, of course, and it is like narrow, small scale time travel. There's this one little shed that the main characters finds that she can use to time travel and she goes back and forth in time about her father, family, neighborhood, relationships. So it's kind of like it does the. It's writing a literary fiction, upmarket fiction with this very slight speculative fiction that allows it to encounter these things in a different way. And I remember just really enjoying my time with the book. And I don't know if I read it on a plane, but I think I read it in one or two sittings of the course because I just found it so pleasant and interesting and a good really way to spend time. And it also. But it also doesn't feel disposable. Right. Like it's got a little crunch to it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Emma Straub is a real. Like you could just kind of go to the Emma Straub shelf in your local bookstore and pick any of her titles. But for that same like there's enough substance to feel like I did something here with this reading experience. It's not just, you know, cotton candy, but they do suck you right in. Very absorbing, fun reading moments.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And if you want to be a little more cringed out. Such a Fun Age by Kylie Reid, which, since it came out December of one year, I can never remember what year it came out. I think it's three years ago now. I tore through like it was a bag, a canister of Pringles. I just kind of shotgunned Such a Fun Age, which is a story of race and class in Philadelphia centering on a young woman who goes to work for a wealthy Philadelphia family and some things are said and seen. And it has one of the great middle of the book kind of cliffhanger moments you're ever going to encounter. And as it accelerates to it and down from it, it'll be very difficult for you to put the book down. I would imagine so. Such a Fun Age by Kylie Read and this Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub are my selections there.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

All right, I'm gonna go with Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby. We've been he's been getting some shouts on this podcast recently and for good reason. This was one of my most recommendable books of the century so far. Just a page turner, but like, it's so gripping. It's super fun. It's about a former getaway driver who was the best in the business and now he's, you know, living the straight life, or so he thinks. Like, but times are tough and his old pals come a call in and they want to get the gang back together and they're going to pull off a jewelry heist, but they need him to drive getaway. And it is not really about the heist. It's like a little bit about the heist, but it is mostly this guy's life. How is he going to navigate this? What's going on with friends and family in the background and then some just edge of your seat stuff while he like I have never cared about descriptions of a man driving a car before. It is so good. I've enjoyed all of the essay Cosbys, but Blacktop Wasteland remains my favorite. Such a really solid debut and that'll you will not notice that time is passing. It's just keep turning those pages like shotgunned is a good term for that one as well. More recently, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix this was my Grady Hendrix conversion moment earlier this year about a bunch of teenage girls who are at a home for unwed mothers in Florida in the 60s. It's a bad scene. It's like as bad of a scene as you would expect a place like that to be. But a kindly librarian driving a bookmobile gives them a spell book and they learn some things about witchcraft to maybe get some revenge on the people who are supposed to be taking care of them. But making deals with people to get special powers doesn't usually work out cleanly for the people involved, and so there are some surprise repercussions maybe for the girls. It's just a great time. It also really moved it's a little on the long side, but you said you got a six hour flight. If you could knock this out, if not in one flight, then definitely across the course of your flights and your vacation. But really a good time.

[Jeff O'Neill]

All right, up next, this is from Heather. I'm getting married next year. I'd love to hear some recommendations for non fiction that you think will help me mentally prepare or contain wisdom and guidance. I've already read and loved Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel, Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert, and the Course of Love by Alain de Botton. The five love languages wasn't for me. I'll happily take any advice from two long married podcasters. Thanks so much. All right, Rebecca, what do you have?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

All right. I mean, I think we could do this all day. This question. So I narrowed it down to Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give by Ada Calhoun, which is about what you would say if you were giving a really honest toast at a wedding. And so some of those things are sharp truths about what it takes to make a long term relationship successful, including that sometimes the trick to staying married is just not getting divorced. Like, the trick to staying together is.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Just deciding, just don't go break, just don't go broke.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna make it through this thing. We're gonna work through it. And of course, like, she's not talking about situations where people are being abused or something, but like, you hit a rough patch and every rough patch is a decision point and you decide we're gonna stay together. But it's really warm and really funny and just encouraging. And it came out, you know, well after I was in a long term situation. But it's the kind of thing that I think will help you get your head around, like, okay, what is it gonna be like? Cause at the moment that you're planning a wedding or you're agreeing to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you're in like the rainbows and unicorns, everything is exciting phase. And I think, you know, you're aware that it's not always going to feel that way. But Calhoun had been married for quite a long time when she, for like decades by the time that she wrote this book. And so some wisdom from someone who has walked that path ahead of you is, is very welcome. I also just wanted to go to like general how to talk about life stuff. So I looped in Tell Me More by Kelly Corrigan, which is about 12 things that we all need to say more in our relationships. And each chapter is about One of those things. So there's tell me more. There's, I don't know, there's I'm sorry, there are, you know, nine other phrases. And she expounds on what came up that made her realize this was a thing she needed to practice saying or asking more of the people in her life and what that has resulted in. I say tell me more all the time.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You do.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And some of like, yeah, you can attest to that. Like, some of that is, you know, having had a lot of therapy, that's a good therapist phrase. But some of that is definitely Kelly Corrigan that, like, and it's so effective. Like someone is talking to you about something in their life and you just tell me more about that or say more people do they want to tell you they do. It's, it's terribly effective. So you could do a lot worse than read that book and stick 12 post it notes around your house with the things that you want to practice saying more often.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I don't have relationship advice books or really even relationship advice in general. I think it's like other relationships, just more so. It's just more intense. It's more, you know, it's harder to find space. But I do have two things that are good for any kinds of relationships and one of which we've actually read in a work environment. But I'll talk about Listen by Katherine Mannix first.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't know this one.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Not, not dissimilar than Tell Me More. But it's about listening and the art of listening and the psychology behind it and how people feel and how to listen. Listen better. I think what we have found as work compatriots, and in our own relationships too, is that if things go askew, it's generally because someone isn't listening to the other or finding a hard way to do so. Sometimes it's because they are actually hearing exactly what is being said. And that is its own kind of challenge. But you get over the first hurdle first, which is to give a fair crack at understanding what someone is trying to say. And it goes beyond the sort of cliched, I was trying to think of what I was going to say while the other person was talking. It's certainly that, but it's also really about strategies and the benefits that come from being a listening forward person. And so someone who is a verbose by nature. It's an especially welcome counter personality Zag. That's useful to do. But I thought it was very, very, very good. And then Drop the Ball by Tiffany Dufu read in a work setting several years ago. And that's about. Would you say, Rebecca? I mean, it's like some things just aren't going to happen. Like letting some stuff go and choosing. It's not dissimilar at its core from the 4000 weeks idea. Like you're not going to do it all. You only have so much energy, attention and time that. Do you really care about the shoes being tidy in the shoe tree in the foyer? Maybe you do. Or do you more care about what if someone comes over and thinks about what you think about the shoe tree? That is also valid. But also. Let's talk about that also. Do you expect the bed to be made every day and notice the passive voice there? If you expect it to be made every day, who is going to make it? Does your partner have to care as much about the things you care about as you do? It sounds wild, but most people don't realize that no, they don't have to care as much about the things that you do. Nor do you have to care as much about the things they care about. But what can then be dropped? What? What do you maybe have a preference? Okay, can you drop that so we can find out the other thing. Do the dishes really need to be done every night because that's important for, say, roach infestation, or do you feel like you just need to for some external thing? Saying you need to do that because that's how things are done. Can you separate. Can you drop some of these balls you're trying to juggle is kind of the metaphor that comes down. And if you find that you're juggling more balls, you're less manic, less sweaty and can maybe take a breath or a breather and have a word to have a conversation or an outing. Life gets complicated and a lot goes on and things take on a momentum of their own. Reminds me of addition, where now we're just getting pastries every day because both of us think that this is important to us. But either or both in that case would have been, if not happy, at least more than fine to drop that ball so that it could be redirected to other things. So Drop the Ball by Tiffany Dufu and Listen by Catherine Mannix are my points.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I'm just gonna echo drop the ball for a second because I think, like, I don't know, Heather, if you're in a an opposite sex like a straight partnership or partnership. But Doofu is especially writing for women in hetero partnerships and who tend to have more of the domestic workload. And then if there are children, women tend to, you know, have more of the childcare workload. Even in relationships that function in a pretty egalitarian fashion, in straight partnerships, the woman is just likely to pick up more. And Tiffany Duva is writing from that space as well. Being like, here is how I arrived in a place where I could look at my husband and say, I'm just not going to do that anymore because it's not important. Important. Or if that thing is that important to you, I will continue to do it. You do it, or, I will. I will continue to do it. But something I have to drop one of these other things. It's kind of fundamentally about how to think about and negotiate, like, all of the work of managing a life together with another person. Or as you said, we read it in a work context, and people use those same tools of, like, I can continue to do this thing, but if I'm going to do this, I can't do this other thing. And we will say, like, well, maybe that ball can just drop. It's. It is just incredibly useful for. Why. Why is it that we do the dishes immediately after dinner every night? Is that just what you did growing up does? Is it actually important to you? Are we going to end up having a fight in five years about how the dishwasher is loaded? That's not actually about how the dishwasher is loaded. And, like, could we do things differently now instead?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Yeah. And it's in, you know, the inverse is, like, pick up the ball. You know, depending on where you are in your relationship to the housework or the things that need doing, you might notice what balls that your partner is juggling and the relative fairness of that or divisions of labor. And, you know, I don't know that everyone's going to have the same relationship to the idea that there's only so many balls we both can juggle together. So, like, you know, if there's 12 balls, we got to pick what they are. But then even if both of us need to get together, juggle 12. If one of us is juggling eight and one of us juggling four, that's unsustainable, generally. Or if some. There's someone doing the work of sustaining, let's put it that way.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Like, you need to know which balls are in the air. And I think there are moments in life where somebody's juggling eight and someone else is juggling four. And maybe it switches at a different point in your lives or your careers or child rearing or whatever, but having those conversations. Like, most of the books that are going to be useful in this zone are generally going to be the things that are like, here's how to think about this, or, here's how to talk about this in a new way, rather than, like, the five love languages, which is based on nothing.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Right? Yeah. I mean, my hot take is most decent business books are relationship books and vice versa.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But that's honestly radical candor getting to.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yes. No, Michelle was looking. Is there getting. Is there radical candor for, like, kids and families and, like, that's a great idea.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Yeah. Or like, my. I don't know if I've told you, my pitch for a book into this zone is like, oh, captain, my captain. Because the. The single best strategy that I have found is, who's the captain of this thing? And if you care about it more, you become the captain of it. And if you don't care enough to be the captain of it, it's not important enough for us to keep doing.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Or. And if you're not. If you don't care to be the captain, your level of critique gets to come down three or four notches. Right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right.

[Jeff O'Neill]

If I'm in charge of picking the dinner place, you don't get to complain about what we're having. If I'm making dinner, you don't get to complain. Oh, you gave me feedback, give me ideas, but once it's done, it's done anyway.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

All right, good luck.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Where are we? I think you're reading next week.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Next we are coming from Jessica, who is a middle school teacher and in a reading slump this semester. That has been real, Jessica says, in the past, cozy mysteries have been my go to for starting back reading habit. I also like nonfiction and memoirs. Nerdy dad book vibes especially. So you're in the right place.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Somebody call.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Recent favorites include Immune by Philip Detmer, one in a millennial project, Hail Mary and the Martian. So ring that bell for Andy Weir.

[Jeff O'Neill]

No kidding, man.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The country of the Blind and the Wager. There's a lot of Jeff Rebecca core in this.

[Jeff O'Neill]

There really is. It's funny because I. I get some recommendation blindness because I start thinking I need to listen, I need to keep reading. And so I'd already typed in country of the Blind, and I was like, oh, country of the Blind. There it is right there. Did you just read. You read that, right? Yeah. Okay, so I'm up.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I'm. Last year. Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Ingrained. And I didn't put the author, and I just forgot the name of this guy. I'm going to look it up real quick. His name is Simon something. Oh, nope, Callum Robinson, which you may have heard he talked about the on the pod earlier. It's the subtitle is the Making of a Craftsman and it's about a woodworker in Scotland and a pivotal moment in his small company's life where they make a big change from doing custom high end woodworking to opening up their own boutique furniture store in this little Scottish town. His father was also a craftsperson and it's there his wife is sort of doing the books and she's trying to keep the house and stuff afloat with cash flow. They're all juggling sharpened tools. I guess there's no balls to be dropped but ball peen hammers maybe. I'm not sure about woodworking tools though I know more than I did. But it's a business book, it's a relationship book, it's an arf book I put on the BRPod Instagram. This is paragraph where he's just describing the different kinds of wood which was insanely good. Terrific on audio. I would read this book by every single profession that exists. Hobby, you know, a cool afternoon you once had. If you can write like this, with this kind of attention to detail, open heartedness and honesty and a winning narration performance. It's really terrific. So I don't. Is there anything about audio in this request?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I can't remember most of the reading on audio.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well then there we go. So that that is not even close to the best one I can give you of things I've read of late.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I had Be Ready when the Luck Happens by Ina Garten. I tapped onto the cozy vibe here. Not a cozy mystery, but this is my favorite audio memoir of last year. She of course is the Barefoot Contessa. And this was way better than it was just way better than I expected it to be. One of the best books of the year on a lot of lists last year. But her story of growing up in a situation without much privilege, how she became this well known super successful figure in the world of cooking and then of course in food, TV and all of these cookbooks and owned little shops in the Hamptons and just an incredible very feminism forward story. It was more just direct and like gutsy than I was ready for Ina Garten to be from what her TV Persona is like. And I was so delighted to discover that I had a feeling of like I want Ina Garten to live in my neighborhood so that when I'm trying to figure out what to do with my. Myself. I can sit down and be like Ina, here is the deal. Like just sort of that wise older.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The oracle in the Matrix kind of. Or the trash heap and the fraggles.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Or I think about like my council of elders. Like Ina Garten can go on your council of elders. How to say Babylon by Sophia Sinclair. Just an incredible memoir that would be phenomenal on audio. I read it in print. I know, Jeff, you listened to it and that has to be the signature.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I mean the accent work on a. By memoirist reading their own stuff. This goes back to the Callum Robinson too. Just elite. It's. There's no. It's like a cheat code for memoir.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. And it's in that zone. It's been a couple years since it came out. So just to recap it like, this is about her experience growing up. Her. Her parents were in the Rastafarian religion or cult, however you want to think about that. She was denied a lot of access to autonomy education. It was very oppressive how she came to realize that what she. She did to get herself out of it and become this poet. Really beautiful language. Just a plus. And then for nerdy dad vibes, if you are not into the oeuvre of Michael Lewis, let's just get you into the Undoing Project.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Where do you want to go for that?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think the Undoing project is a great start. But like Moneyball is the. Is my reliable starting point for Michael Lewis, I think, but takes a fascinating. A story that would be fascinating on its own and then really gets into who the people are, the characters, the storytelling about things that actually happened in real life is just super fun and engaging. He's a great time. So I maybe just peruse the synopses of Michael Lewis books and pick the one that sounds most up your alley and start there.

[Jeff O'Neill]

All right. Up next, this is from Michelle. I need a new Swiss army recommendation. Thank you for picking up our parlance, Michelle. That means a lot to us. Imitation via flattery or flattery via imitation will get you everywhere. I have started to repeat Rebecca. What? This could be its own show. This could be its own episode. Is re Recasting. Reforging a Swiss army knife recommendation list.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I wish that I could have written back to Michelle and been like, what was your previous Swiss army recommendation?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Great question.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This means different things to different people. Right. So I wanted to know what Michelle had been repeating. But I bet gonna go in here, I think for north woods by Daniel Mason.

[Jeff O'Neill]

There's a Question mark in your voice and on the page. Tell me more about that question mark.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Well, the question mark is firstly, it's been a while since I stumbled on something that I thought was a real new Swiss army recommendation. But I think most kinds of readers will like Northwoods. There's something to latch onto for everybody it is. For me it was fiction that reminded me of like the fun and surprising things that fiction can do without being experimental and Weir. It's accessible. You do slip right into it. The pitch is it's the story of this cabin in the north woods over centuries of the cabin's existence. But really we get like connected vignettes about the different people that have been. That have experienced parts of their lives around this cabin and the like subtle ways that they're connected. But also the writing is gorgeous and not in a heavy artistic notice my literary writing way. It's just beautifully constructed. Like everything that I want in a pleasurable book experience was there in Northwoods. The question mark is like if you've got somebody who really just needs like a page turner, this is not going to be a Swiss army recommendation for them. But I get, and this makes me want like a call in episode about what are the Swiss army recommendations that other people that listeners are using. Because I do feel like it's been a while since I read something that I thought was a real utility in that way.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I love this pick for you. I. I fear this, though. I fear that my tolerance for boring things makes you feel like you're a more exciting reader than you actually are. Because this is a more of a difficult pitch for most readers than I think you're giving it credit for. I love this. People pick the. If we're talking Swiss Army, I liked this book.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It was on so many lists.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, Indie bookstore, tote bag list. That's not what we're talking. We're talking with Swiss army knife. They got over open wine bottles, they got to remove splinters, they need to fight off bears like, you got it. The Northwards is a terrific book but there's going to be a high percentage of people like, what in the hell is going on? And the answer you have to give them is pretty much nothing. It's about a patch of ground.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Trust me, you'll like it. Yeah, listen, I can see your recommendation here and you have won this category.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, I mean this is. I'm now using a little inductive reasoning here, which I'm just looking at the full board and by looking at the number of requests we get for Project Hail Mary Read alikes. How many people I know like it. Whenever we do mention it, people are like, I love that book. I think this is it, man. Because you look at like, whatever, it just has something for everyone and it reads like a house on fire. It's got science, it's got the dad stuff, it's got character. There's a main relationship. It's about something. Something. It's very approachable in its own way. So again, probably the right answer. The right answer is some like page turning mystery kind of situation where it's like, if you're just going to get.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Probably God of the woods.

[Jeff O'Neill]

No, I think I even. That I think doesn't have the. The fun. I think I'm looking for fun. If I'm looking for. I think you can do worse than solve for fun. And Project Hail Mary is fun and does a lot of interesting things and people will not have read something like it before. Which I think is. Is a feather in the Swiss army cap. Is that the Swiss Guard? Yeah, the Swiss Guard. There are no feathers in those caps, I don't think.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Anyway. All right, well, this next one is going to be all of you also because Jillian is looking for nonfiction about the publishing industry.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So I think the canonical book has been. Is it came out a while ago. It's called the Merchants of Culture by John Thompson, which it's probably 20 years old now. I should have looked at the publication date and I'm sure there'd be interesting things to say about that. But it gives you a history of what's going on. I read it early in the days to try to get my. My hands around it. More recently, people have talked to me about Big Fiction. I've talked about Big Fiction by Dan Sinnikin, which is about the conglomeration of major American publishing, which is really the meta story of the last 20 or 25 years in fiction. Like every. Every industry is subject to the phone, but not every industry has been subject to this. Like phones plus conglomeration equals publishing history of the last two decades. You could do a worse simple formula there. You get a lot of insider stories. Sinokin is a professor of English at Emory. There's a couple others. But Merchants of Cultures don't always want to start with. And if you want to get a little more academic, check out Big Fiction. I know Sinokin's working in the Random House archives at the moment, and I have no idea what that's going to turn into, but I can only imagine it's going to be pretty interesting.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay, I'll second the emotion for merchants of culture, especially if you want to know, like how did paperbacks first come to be? Like that kind of history of how the industry developed and the different points of disruption, what those looked like. It's a nice big overview.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, the merchants of culture sort of ends as I recall with this Amazon. Things. Things that can be a deal, huh? Guess we'll find out.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

They're due for like a 20th anniversary edition with a couple new. A new chapter or something.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So. Okay, I have a. This is up next. I have a friend who comes to me for recommendations that fit your vibe and I like to get a few in the bag ahead of her next holiday as I'm a little behind on my own. She likes female centric books and works that are contemporary literary, sense of intrigue and person focused. So no North Woods. It cannot be Patch of Ground focus. Sorry, Rebecca. Books you love. In the past, I've recommended Celeste in God of the Woods. Bury what we cannot take Intrigue but is not read. They're there and behold the dreamers. Would prefer notebooks that focus on baby's marriage or struggles with infertility. Thanks in advance as these are sneaky double wrecks for me.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Love this for you I'm gonna go with Margo's Got Money Trouble by Rufi Thorpe, about a young woman who, like, there's a baby, but the book is.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Not about the baby.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

She gets pregnant by her English teacher. Her professor drops out of school and she's got to figure out how she's going to get by. And she finds out about this thing called Only Fans. And she starts in Only Fans. And her dad kind of comes back on the scene. Her father has been a professional wrestler and they've had an interesting relationship. And dad is maybe gonna help with the baby and also maybe gonna help with the business. And it's like for a book about a young woman becoming a sex worker out of her, like through the Internet, out of her bedroom while just trying to like, pay for her baby from an experience that should have never happened to her. It's like surprisingly wholesome and sweet. The stuff that happens in her relationship with her dad especially. This was one of the most fun and surprising reading experiences I had last year. Headshot by Rita Bullwinkle. And I had this on the list before the Pulitzer happened.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I'm gonna go back into track changes and make sure that's true.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But super creative. It's set at a girls boxing tournament, like over the course of one weekend. Each chapter is One of the matches and you're just in the girls heads through these things and it is phenomenal. It's kind of. I hadn't read anything quite like it. Just a very memorable reading experience. And then from this year, the Dream Hotel by Leila Lalami. I don't know exactly how sensitive some of these things are for your friend, but like she is picked up and taken to a detention center in this slight future where all of your everythings are monitored by an algorithm that determines how likely you are to commit a crime. And if you cross over a certain threshold, they detain you to prevent you from committing some crime in the future. So she is detained and she's away from her family. But there is not like a real focus on the marriage or the baby or anything like that. And it's really about this woman coming to realize like should I be trying to cooperate with the system because they keep telling me that if I do the right things I'm going to get out or is that a lie? Because the system is of course always most invested in perpetuating itself. And so what do you do in a moment like this? This dropped like right as a bunch of the Elon Musk stuff was picking up with Doge. And it was like very timely in my reading experience to be like, oh yeah, these are the kinds of futures that you're looking at when the government can get access to all of our personal data. Because they're like you. You know, some of it is really speculative, like you had a dream about this thing and we're worried about it. But some of it is based on your texts, based on your web browsing, based on the last time you had a period, as per the app that you had on your phone. All kinds of things. Really creepy, but very compelling.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't like my pick. All of a sudden I'm now reading. Well, so I guess something you said, I'm not sure how much. No books that focus on babies, marriage or struggles infertility. Because my first thought was Katie Kitamar especially audition because I read that is my favorite book of the year so far. Is this book about marriage? Sort of. I mean, right?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It has, yeah. I don't think it's a book about marriage.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, but does it focus on it? I don't know. Maybe I'm parsing too hard. It's not a book about babies, but it is about having kids or not having kids. I'm not, I'm not super happy with it. So I think maybe Kiddig Murray is a Good fit for the kinds of things you described above in prosecution. But maybe intimacies rather than audition, it might be a little bit different. The other thing I would suggest is Rental House by Wiki Wang, which is the other one I thought would be really good. Again, there's a marriage in it that's central, but it's not really under duress. It's like people that are married, but it's not. I'm guessing here, it's not. I'm guessing from context that it's about like divorce or something like that. Like, there are people that are married, but it's more about these few interactions they have with their families over the course of several vacations and rental homes. And if you haven't done a wakey wing, it's pretty cool.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Some of that, I guess, as a caveat, does center on their experience as a couple that have chosen not to have kids.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And what that's like. What that experience is like in the world. So it really depends on, like, you'll know your friend better than we will.

[Jeff O'Neill]

But let me zag again then. Okay, let's clear. Let's clear the board. These are. These have some strings on it. This is not a Pinocchio situation where it's a freestanding boy. Here. Let's go. The Guest by Emma Klein, which came out a few summers ago. It's about a young woman who maybe is a grifter con woman or maybe is just really in distress. Maybe both. Those don't have to be mutually exclusive. And she entangles herself into high society on Long island and is avoiding a situation that we only hear little glimpses of back in the city. But it's. It's a weirdly a thriller about hanging out with people wearing polos. But it's really cool.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It is. It's really good.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So I'm zagging. I zagged twice there. I'm trying hard, Kim. I hope you enjoy it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We're working through it together.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, we're trying to figure this out.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay, next one is from Michael, who is looking for a book for his wife. Says they've had a lot in our minds lately. She usually reads serious nonfiction. She has a master's in history and has recently enjoyed some family drama with a sense of place like Pachinko and the Eighth Life. However, with everything going on, she's gotten really into whodunit. She spotted Jane Harper on the bookshelf and all of those you love to hear.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You love to hear it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

She read the Silent Patient and liked it. But isn't the keenest on the unreliable narrator trope. She is familiar with Gone Girl. They've got Attica Locke essay, Cosby and Tana French books in their.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Damn it, Michael, Come on. You have to throw us a bone here.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Really leveling up the challenges here. So Michael is looking for a fresh mystery thriller recommendation that can help her continue to keep her mind off the world. And Michael has been listening to us since 2016. So thank you. That is a long run.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. So the Cartographers, by paying shepherd, is a group of college friends who get involved into maybe a little of a speculative fiction treasure hunt. Or there's, there's a map and the map leads somewhere. And I thought it was a lot of fun. It's a little less thrillery and a little more. It's not the Da Vinci Code, but it's got a couple of strands. It shares a few chromosomes of. This probably is not going to happen this way. But I'm along for the ride there. I'm also going to shout out a deep cut. SJ Rosen is a family friend, a mystery writer, and she has a long running series and the first of them is called Winter and Night came out in 2003 and won the Edgar Award, which is given for the best mystery novel of the year. And I read it 20 years ago and really liked it. And I'm not much of a mystery person, but I get to shout out Shira SJ Rosen and give me an excuse to talk about Winternight, which I think you'll enjoy. And here, if you like it, there are 14 more waiting for you right there. So those are my picks. The Cartographers by paying shepherd and Winter and Night by S.J. rose. And I say Winter and Night, I should say that it is, it is a crime mystery thriller. So people are in distress and sometimes they are children. But you're doing Gone Girl and Cosby and like, I'm guessing you're okay with a disappeared person or else you wouldn't be reading those things. But just thought I would say that again here.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

All right. I went with Scorched Grace by Margot Duahi, which my favorite new mystery series of a couple of years. This is the first. There are a couple more since then. And it is about like, she's not a normal nun. She's a cool nun.

[Jeff O'Neill]

A cool nun.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And she is a cool nun. She is a nun who smokes and curses and has a lot of tattoos and is stationed at a convent and a school in New Orleans. And so you get this incredibly rich description of what it's like in New Orleans, but someone sets keeps setting fires around the school and the local fire department and police seem to be pretty incompetent. So what is she going to do except get involved herself in solving the mystery of who is setting the fires? The voice of this is just so much fun. And the atmosphere that Dwahi builds around New Orleans. Like if you have ever been to New Orleans, you can like hear the music and feel that like swampy humidity settling in and she just really channels it. I think I have some questions for you by Rebecca Mackay from a couple years ago. Might also be a good one here. There's a couple layers going on about that story, but it's a person who is producing a true crime podcast, but she's also gone. The true crime podcast is about a death that happened at a boarding school that she had connections to. And so she has gone back to the boarding school school to like interview people and teach a workshop about making podcasts. And there's all this stuff happening in there about like they're trying to solve the crime of how did this person die? But there are also things that are happening in the present day that she's trying to untangle. And there's some meta level stuff about what does it mean that we have turned crime into forms of entertainment and how do you think about untangling that or having a relationship that feels okay to that kind of media. It's a big it's like on the long side. And also a mix of literary like this is not a straight whodunit. Makai's a literary writer, but there's a lot of mystery stuff written into the book.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah my read next I'm just was remembering a different book for something else here so I'm doing that same time. Okay. Finance related for my mother with a focus on the importance of public welfare and how it can benefit the economy long term. She's very astute, 75 and economic literate with a fun side anecdote that I cannot see on the air. But thank you very much Alex for telling about this. Sounds like an impressive person, but she's fallen into the trap of seeing welfare as a lazy person's option and publicly funded endeavors as inherently wasteful. Trying to find something that makes a compelling argument to shake up her fiscally conservative thinking that isn't just preaching to a liberal choir, if you get what I mean. I know she's read Michael Lewis Big Short Smart Sky's Room Rigged by Andy Verity. Not really in Your wheelhouse. I know, but given the quote unquote state of things, I thought maybe you'd have come across something that fits the bill. Rebecca, I think you found the best one, though. I just thought of something else that might be of interest. So you do that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This is tough, but I went with Poverty by Matthew Desmond. It seems like mom here is open to some systems kind of thinking. And I, you know, as a dyed in the wool liberal, think that the shortest path to understanding that welfare is not a label lazy person's option is understanding the economic systems of inequality that put people in positions where that is the best option that's available to them. And Matthew Desmond lays all of that out in straightforward, connected, like, very compelling writing. This one got nominated for a bunch of awards and ended up on end of year lists for a reason. And so I think if, if mom has ears to hear, this is the place to go. Here is how we end up with people living in poverty, specifically in America. What are the systems in our politics and in the way that our society is put together that make that possible and that perpetuate it? It's the best recommendation that I had. I don't know that there's a great one for this. I'm really curious about what you're gonna do.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I was thinking. I know. Well, I believe that. I understand that something like say food stamp programs or Social Security has been an aggregate, a win. Right. And forget. And that's not to mention what I don't know about the rest of the world, but I can't think of like a big reported book about, hey, you know what sucked? Not having Social Security. Right. You know, those kinds of things. And that made me remember and I don't believe I read this whole book, but. So you might check it out for yourself, Michael. It's called Not Enough Human Rights in an Unequal World by Samuel Moyn. It came out, let me see here, 2018 from Belknap Press. And the thing that made me think of it again is I do remember. Maybe I read an interview or something with this guy. It's an academic book, so you'll have to check it out and see if it's something you're interested in. It's like getting someone a puppy. To some degree. This is a reading puppy. You're going to give someone. Someone. Only 296 pages, but they are. They're tough. But like for classical neoliberalism that cares about human rights but doesn't do as much about poverty and social injustice, that's Moyn's central critique, if I recall, and this difference between sufficiency and equality. And there's a useful distinction there and it feels like it might be almost exactly what would be interesting for your use case. Having not a lot of confidence that I've read it and can vouch for it myself, I'm giving more of a divining rod towards a well in the desert rather than saying, here, have some water. But that's what I've got for you. That's. Yeah, just, just go that way and straight on till morning and you'll get there. Okay, Beth, let's do a sponsor break real quick.

[C]

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[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay, shoot.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Beth is looking for recommendation for a friend who just had a baby and wants books that are engaging but not too mentally taxing or dark. Says I've been spending a lot of time feeding the baby, which means I'm stuck on the couch with only one hand free.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay, listen, Thursday Murder Club was made for this. It just was by Richard Osmond. And then once your baby's a little older and you're not getting up in the middle of the night, but they go to bed at 6:00, you can then watch the what will sure to be a series of Netflix adaptations of all the Richard Osmond books. Truly, they are warm, engaging mysteries that are investigated by pensioners over in England. So a group of older young pensioners who see something, say something, and do something when the cops seem sort of barely interested in what's going on. Or let's not get into the ethics of what they actually do here. That's like, don't think about Batman too long or else you're gonna make yourself nuts. But it's a really fun, clever read more on the escapist front. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan. Of course it's been out for a while, but there is a series escapist, escapist ridiculousness about extremely wealthy people in Asia getting up to hijinks about things that don't matter. But isn't it fun to watch? So Crazy Rich Ages by Kevin Kwan too.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I got Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley.

[Jeff O'Neill]

From I almost started reading this yesterday. I got some other stuff I have to read. I really need to get to this book. Sorry.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So much fun. It's just so much fun. So engaging. About young man and young woman who meet in college. He is a musician, she has opinions about music. They become collaborators where he continues to make music and she is the sounding board who gives him like the honest feedback that he needs. And then he hits it big and they have an on again, off again will they won't they thing for like a couple of decades. And it's just a great time. And Austin Butler is going to play him in the film that's already been announced. Like good stuff. Just a really good reading time. You will be engaged. This is the time also to shout out our friend Kevin the Lumberjack Wilson. I think all things Kevin Wilson are fun, zany, engaging. I would start with now is not The Time to Panic, which is about teenagers that accidentally set off a satanic panic in their small town in the 90s. But he's just a good time reading. And if your friend is up for like something with a little twist, I don't ever want to miss a chance to recommend We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Berry, which is about a girls lacrosse team or a field hockey team in the 80s outside Salem, Massachusetts. They have had a losing season and they make a deal with the devil to get a winning season. And it's packed with 80s pop culture references. A really interesting narrative voice. It's been several years since I read this and I still think about how much fun it was.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You want to do the next read? Because I've got one.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes, next one. Is somebody looking for a book like A Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier. It's steeped with Irish folklore in a way that doesn't make it seem fantastical. It says the closest I've gotten to the feeling is Game of Thrones and Kashiel's Dart but never quite hit the mark. That's from Grace.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Grace, I'm going to be honest, I have no idea about the book that you mentioned. I looked it up and I'm like I not getting a lot other than what you said. So what I picked up with is the folklore and the river has Roots by Amal El Mohtar. She of no I can't even say it out loud but this is how you lose the Time War fame. This is her new novella. Interviewed her over on First Edition so you can really get a sense of it's for you by listening to that which may be as long as it takes. You read the book because it is a novella ish type object but it's a group. It's two sisters who live at the edge of a wood and it's at the edge of where the fairy live the fae and they are kind of guardians and someone falls in love with somebody, somebody gets in trouble, someone may turn into an inanimate object in back and forth but I thought it was really cool. And in talking to El Mohtar about her deep research into various representations of fairies and the in the in the fairy world something she says like it's used to describe things that are either very far away in place or very far away in time. The the land of the fairy. So it's like you know there's this old rock and if you go to it, well it has to be this old rock because it's old, but. Or if it's farther away in time. It could be this new thing that was brought from somewhere and those are portals to this different world. The sister's relationship is really cool. I don't know if you do audio, but there's quite a bit of like, singing in the the print version. And Amal says she and her sister actually perform the songs in the audiobook, which I find charming as all get out. So that's what I've got for you. The river has Roots by Amal El Mohtar. And if it's not right, it'll be over quick. Okay, I'm up next. First of all, nice things about us. Thank you. Thank you for that. I'm not a mom yet, or a dad, obviously, or a grad, thank God, but I'm in the middle of some major transitions in life and looking for wrecks for them and their partner. Getting married, looking to buy an apartment, trying for a baby. It's a lot for myself. I'm looking for fiction to help make sense of the world. Good luck with that. Books I love are quite literate, but readable, emotional, and offer some hope. I love multiple books by Lily King, Yoko Ogawa, Emily St. John Mandel, novels like Lack of Dr. Laugh by Kate Atkinson, Olga Dice, Dreaming, blah blah, blah. I would especially appreciate some recommendations for books and translations. I'm trying to read more widely this year. Rebecca Our first Bertino. It took us a while, but we got it. We made it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We're gonna start with Beauty Land by Marie Helene Bertino, about a girl who is born right as the voyager is taking off in the 70s. And that maybe has something to do with it or maybe not. But as she grows up, she starts to get faxes from what she believes to be aliens who want her to report back about life on Earth and what it is to be a human. She also believes that these are her home people. Whether or not she is an alien, we never know. And it doesn't matter.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I mean, we all have days.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, but it's of course, as she grows up, her observations about what it feels like down here, what people are doing down here, become more sophisticated and thoughtful. And she kind of develops a public reputation built around this story that she's telling. But there's also stuff like I think our shared favorite observation in the book is like, why do humans pick the loudest possible snack?

[Jeff O'Neill]

My daughter mentioned that when she read.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It on her own movies. Yeah, just really lovely observations about human life and what it is to be a person down here. I did not have anything in translation because everything I've read in translation over the last couple of years has been like pretty heavy. So I don't want to give you any of that. And that's just by virtue of I tend to read the dark stuff. So pick up some Marie Helene Bertino, get some life affirmingness. It's. I just find her to be warm and substantial and I think that's what you're looking for.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I took the brief say I read it broadly here in this regard. So this isn't translation, but it is set in a different place than America and it is not about making sense of the world. I think it is about what can be endured and how one can endure it, especially on the micro level of those around you and those that you care about. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Hosseini, best known of course, for the Kite Runner. Shout out to first edition. One of the first really great episodes I enjoyed doing over there was the story of the Kite Runner on the occasion of its 25th 30th. I can't remember what anniversary. Must be 30 now. No, 20. This thousand splendid Suns comes after Kite Runner, of course. I think it is the most accomplished of Hosseini's books. It is really terrific. It's about two friends who are in Kabul and dealing with what is going on Kabul with growing unrest and what happens in the relationships and how they have to navigate the social world that they're put into and what can be endured, what shouldn't be endured. Really quite beautiful and moving and as painful as the book isn't as painful as a lot of the world seems, where do you turn? You turn toward each other and it's a simple message, but it is what it is. And A Thousand Splendid Suns is a good of this message as you're going to find. So I checked out the Goodreads for this just to see because I'm like, is it under known?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

What does that look like?

[Jeff O'Neill]

First of all, 1.7 million ratings, which is wild. But also four and a half stars and we. It's. It's hard. It's hard to parse if you don't do this a lot. That four and a half stars is like meaningfully different than four and a quarter stars for that many reviews.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. And really different from what, like 3.5 or 3.75, which is the average.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. So anyway, it's the Kite Runner has been read like twice as often or at least rated twice as often, but has a slightly lower star rating. Again, take it for what it's worth, but I really think A Thousand Splendid Suns was was pretty terrific. And I hadn't, I hadn't read it. I hadn't reread any of the Hosseini, but I reread all of his books for that episode, and that was the one that jumped out to me. This is really, really damn good. And I'm I know the Kite Runner gets all the shine because it was such a phenomenon, but the this is a terrific book too.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Next one's your read.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh, sorry. For my future husband, I'm looking for books that have good pacing, get him engaged and out of his head, but also discuss politics or some larger issues. In the past, he read classic sci fi like Asimov and memoirs by people he admired. Currently mostly reads political news or something familiar.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay, I went two different directions here for the he likes government and how things Work. Who is Government? By Michael Lewis or Edited by Michael Lewis. Brand new collection. He got a bunch of reporters and great writers, W. Kamau Bell, Sarah Vowell among them, and was like, go find interesting people doing fascinating things in the government and write profiles of them. And so you get like the person who runs like the cemeteries where veterans are buried and how they have kind of transformed that and done it beautifully. The guy who figured out the right way to come to a formula that would keep mines from collapsing on minors, and then once they distributed that out and got people to pay attention to it, decreased miner deaths by like 98% or something totally bonkers like that. Just the people doing like the daily, very unglamorous work of making the government happen and making public life possible for all of us. Really excellent. Especially right now. Since he likes sci fi and thinking about engaging ideas, I'm going to toss you searches by Vahini Vara Interesting. Which is. Did you get to it yet?

[Jeff O'Neill]

No, I bought it though, but I haven't gotten to it yet.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay, which is a meditation on like, what do we do? What does selfhood mean in the age of AI? Like when we have artificial intelligence that acts and sounds like humans in a lot of cases, what does it mean to be human? And that is heady stuff, but the way she executes it is is fascinating. Like she's writing this book and putting the book into AI and then publishing the conversations that she has with ChatGPT into the book. So you read her draft and then her conversation with ChatGPT about the draft, and then it evolves into like her talking to Chat GPT about Uses of AI. And if I were going to be a venture capital person and pitch some sort of AI, how would I pitch it? And here are the AI generated images that I would use. And just like, if he likes thinking about the kinds of things that, like, Asimov was interested in, but that we're kind of living through right now, it's just mind blowing in a really pleasant way. Like, it's a literary writing, but just incredible nonfiction. And I found it to be very engaging because every chapter you're like, what is she gonna do next? And I don't know. The last time that I read something where I was just that surprised once section after the next by like, ah, this is the next place we're going here.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. I mean, again, I'm going to RST and LE and just say, try Project Hail Mary. I do have something else a little bit different. And as a mob, I don't know how Asimov can be more or less strange. So it's hard to know where I'm going to go back, way back to 2013 and talk about Ancillary justice by Ann Lecky real quick. Which was a hit in the earlier days. It's space. It's like, it's a space thing, but these starships have their own intelligence. Right. That connects to the soldiers that are in the service of this Empire thing. And it does get into by way of the thing that sci fi does, issues of war and justice and being drafted in and how do you know you're on the right side and all the kinds of things that go into it. It's kind of heady stuff, but also pretty cool. Like for the Star wars kind of nerd like me, spaceships are just cool. And it's not the worst sort of appetizer towards thinking about other things. And it did pretty well for a while there. I'm not sure where this series ended up. She has 53 books. That's unbelievable.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You know, this might also be a Murderbot moment.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Except I don't think that's about a whole lot. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's about life, the universe, and the everything. And, you know, robots thinking about themselves. I'm not sure. But Ann Leckie, she has a whole bunch of books too. So if he likes her, you can do the Raven Tower. And then there's three books in this ancillary series, but that's Ancillary Justice. Let us know how you like it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

This next question contains some books that might actually be recommended.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I also thought about this too.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So Mallory is writing in to get recommendations for her partner who likes sci fi. The chunkier the better. Like N.K. jemisin, Octavia Butler, the Bright Sword, which was your recommendation.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I love it when they give me poppy wars.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Give.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Just tell us all my recommendation. You like it?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

The Priory of the Orange Tree. Between the Earth and the sky series by Rebecca Roanhorse, Susanna Clark's books and.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You just skipped over a dub there, even though we're collecting data.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh yeah, Andy, we are right here on the list. Didn't care for Clara and the sun or Moon of the Crusted Snow. This one's all you.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think I go to the Mountain in the Sea by Ray Naylor here, which is about a encounter with a octopus civilization that was just hanging out and it is cool. This book is awesome. I think it's kind of been the hit of the elevated literary sci fi world over the last couple years. And then I got me thinking about other literary specific sci fi. The Area X series from Jeff Vanderbilt. Annihilation is the first one. There's a movie version of that. They just. He just published the fourth in the increasingly misnamed trilogy of the Area X trilogy. Then I was like what about 3 body problem? Or what about that babble by RF Kuang? So I think really Mountain in the Sea, but those others, I think it's hard here because I look at this list of books this person's read and enjoyed and I'm not as conversant in sci fi enough to be like to just grok and like string together a corkboard of like this means that all of these things are connected somehow. I'm not really seeing a through line other than good books in sci fi and fantasy. So that's what I list listed good books in sci fi and fantasy, but the Mountain in the Sea might be the one that's most relevant. And I haven't checked out Ray Naylor's new books, but I want to see that this new book as well. Okay, another request. I have a goal this summer to read four books. Middle of March by George Eliot, these Truths by Jill Lepore and Memorial by Alice Wynn in poetry Unbound, the 50 poems collection. How would you approach the order of these books? I'm also trying to read as much as possible my 6 year old son and 4 year old daughter. We just finished the first book in the Junie B. Jones series and he also likes Piggy and Gerald books. What would you recommend?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay, I love this project for you. First of all, this is great. I would do one of the big doorstop books each month and break them into whatever a daily page count for you is. That's manageable. So like I did Anna Karenina one summer in one month, and it was like 30 pages a day for 30 days and got me to the 900. So I think, figure out what's reasonable and chunk it up that way. Because Middlemarch is big and these truths is big, and it looks like In Memoriam is pretty big. So I would do that. And then with the poems, take a poem a day in the mornings with your coffee, or in the evening, whenever you have time. Or maybe spend a couple of days with each poem of those 50 over the course of the summer. I don't know what all the 50 poems are that are in the Poetry Unbound collection. I imagine some of them you'll read and you'll be like, great, I did this once. But some of them you might want to linger on and spend some more time with. But I would give yourself like a. Poems are a nice way to just like, have a moment. So maybe build yourself like a daily moment to do the poem work and then chunk up the doorstops over time.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Disagree. Hard disagree. Oh, knock out the poems first. Get started Memorial Day weekend. Plow through them, give yourself some momentum. Then Middlemarch, because Middle March is terrific. And Rebecca, have you read Middlemarch?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

No, I'm gonna have to do it for a shared project at some point.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think I was gonna say, because it's like, I haven't ever heard you talk about it and I know you'd have an opinion about it. Either way, I think you'll probably, you know what? We have not together. Talked about, like, classic classics. What's the most classic book we've ever read together? Oh, I mean, we did the Romeo and Juliet thing, but that doesn't really count.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, probably a Toni Morrison.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Really? Is that it? Like, we haven't been pre 1973.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't think we've gone back to something like.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Because you're not. I mean, you're not. Again, you're a well educated person, but you haven't, like, done the whole Western canon fetishization thing.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, that hasn't been your chance. No, I mean, I minored in English and I. So I read a bunch of them, but I. And I didn't get a master's in English. I went for, you know, psychology. So. Yeah. And then in my adult reading life, I have not done this break down.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Middle March one June.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, that's never been I think even if I weren't working in this career where I'm reading contemporary stuff, it's never been really my jam to just want to go, like, read all of the classics of Western Civ. Like, I've. I think I have picked up a lot of them over time, but we have. We've just never really gone back that way. Yeah, we haven't hopped.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I'm a huge momentum reader, so the idea of reading a poem a day and then putting it down, if I'm into it, it feels like I want to jump out of my skin. But that is a good way to get some momentum because you can knock it out and have some time with it and then keep the pages turning. Pick up whichever one feels nice. If you really have a goal to get through these four, whatever, great, fine. I'm sure you have your reasons. But if you get stopped, put the damn thing down. Do something else. If you start these, choose, and you're like, I'm not into this right now. Put it down after 25 pages and pick up one of the other ones. If you're really committed to getting through them all, but keep those pages turning. Don't worry about a plan. Turn pages on the kids side four and six. What a wonderful time to be reading together because you can make up whatever you want is on the page. Well, maybe not for the 6 year old. I'm going just a little bit older because I found this to be the case that the kids, especially if you're reading to them, not an audiobook because they'll zone out. If you're reading to them in a few pages or a chapter at night, they can read up a little bit, they can listen up a little bit than they can read on their own. So one that my kids and my family enjoyed together. The Princess in Black by Shannon Hale. There's a series of them. She is a princess by day and a crime fighter and justice seeker by night. It's adorable and fun and well illustrated. And you'll have a good time performing the voices of Goat Boy and the various other sidekicks that the princess in black engages.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I would like to request a performance of the voice.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's the double Patreon. It's the Patreon within the patreon. It's like the secret room at the Masonic Lodge. You gotta get in the door, but then there's a door behind the door.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I'm gonna make myself a note for when I see you this summer. Like Jeff at two Tiki drinks in Ask about Goat Boy.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's tough. And then Ways to Make Sunshine by Renee Watson, who's a Portland author and this is a young woman, she's grade schoolish, maybe sixth grade is the main character and her family is moving and it's the stuff that grade schoolers go through. Renee Watson, I believe, explicitly said she wanted to write Beverly Cleary for black kids in Portland and across the. Across the world. But giving kids the credit of their own interiority, which was kind of Beverly Cleary's innovation and the quotidian ways that the adult's life affect the kids lives and vice versa. And there's another book of follow up, but I can't remember the name of it right now. But that was also really good. Read aloud when the kids were younger and then these things they can start to read on their own. Because like I remember when I read this. Well, you read this to us, mom. I want to pick it up myself now and do those kinds of things. So you might try Ways to Make Sunshine. Might read a little old, but I maybe don't think so. Certainly not for the 6 year old. But I think both 4 and 6 will enjoy the Princess in Black. And maybe if Ways to Make Sunshine's a little, A little ambitious for you now you can put that on the shelf and pull it out later like a bottle of wine when you're ready for it. Okay, two to go. Two to go. This is your read. My read?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, this is somebody. This is. I don't think we've had a question like this before. After reading several Daniel Silva books where some of the action takes place in Corsica, this person is planning a trip to Corsica with their mom. Can you recommend any other books, fiction or nonfiction that takes place in or have information about Corsica? They have some guidebooks, but would like something more that might give us a flavor of the island.

[Jeff O'Neill]

When I first read this, I'm like, God dang it, I got nothing here. I'm gonna have to go to Google like an idiot. No, I'm kidding. I'm giving you a hard time because I really, I was like about to do the same thing. I was like, wait a minute. I think Peter Mayall wrote one of his like very fluffy crime books set in Corsica. And sure enough, it's called the Corsican Caper People. Longtime listeners may have heard talk about Peter Mayle before he moved over to Provence in Middle Ages.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Oh, he's the Provence guy.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The Provence guy. But he had a second writing career writing sort of light European heist and crime books that are super More about eating grapes than they are about solving mysteries. And you can tell he cares way more about the food in accoutrements than about, like. What happened to that painting? Oh, I don't know. But this one is set in Corsica. I cannot over. Emphasize. Emphasize how light this book is. It really is meant to be read in the sunshine when you're, like, maybe a little past half drunk and probably really full and tired. And you're, like, gonna keep reading because it's just so easy to get down. It's kind of like the third glass of wine you shouldn't have had, but it just tastes so good, you're gonna keep going. So that's the Corsicaper by Peter Mayle.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Call it a day, you know, and if anyone's listening, who needs books about Provence? And you haven't been here the whole time. Jeff had a really Provence moment, like, 10 years ago.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Was that that made. Are we sure that wasn't Covid?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think it was before COVID I.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Feel like a lot of our Covid behavior we need to address. We need to treat. Like after you had a breakup behavior. I think it makes a lot more sense the world if we're just like. All that stuff was like, pretend you.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Just broke up with someone for a bit.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Read about. Rather than go to France. Rather than read about France and do, like, a Gilbert situation. I just went to the library and read about eating unpasteurized cheeses.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I found Granite island by Dorothy Carrington, so I would pick up the Corsican caper instead. That sounds like.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I mean, give it. I. Again, just. There's no way you're gonna understand how light these are, but give it a shot. And if you just want a sense of the. The place. I think that's probably pretty fun. All right. One for both of us.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yep.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Just heard the interview. First edition, I think. Yes, indeed. With Marie Helene. Bertino Was intrigued. Have never read Bertino. I want to add one to my TBR for this year. Where should I start? And while you're at it, since Jeff's just read the whole Oeuvois. Oeuvre. Oeuvre. We can English get on this. This is an unacceptable situation to put our mouths in. What should the full reading sequence be? Corpus, even. That's. Come on. Assuming the reading experience holds up. I know I'll keep reading till I've read them all. Your recommendations are always preached. Considers a dad request, myself included. Well, you say Exit 0 is a good sampler. I think that's correct. I think. Is that where you want to start? I'm not sure. You could do worse. It's really between this and Beauty Land, I guess, is what I would say.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I think take. I'll Describe the Exit 0 here for a second and then you heard us talk about Beauty Land a few minutes ago and you can decide which one sounds better for you. It just depends on what kind of reader you are. Exit Zero, I think, is a really solid sampler and we said this when we were doing the Patreon episode about reading our way through those stories, that it's a really good taste of all the things that Bertino is going to do. You get the like inquisitive looks at humanity and isn't it just weird what we're all doing down here? But also weird stuff happens. And what her flavor of weirdness is is on full display in Exit 0. And some of the stories are weirder than others. So, like, you can really discover what she's got going on there. If you like Exit 0, I think you will like everything that she is going to offer you. Some of it will be less weird, like 2am the cat's pajamas, not as weird. Beauty Land has some touches of weirdness, but it's not as weird as Parakeet.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Is the strangest one of them all.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And Exit Zero, if you want to start with a full narrative instead of short stories, I do think Beauty Land, I agree, is the place to go.

[Jeff O'Neill]

The thing that's hard about starting with Exit Zero is I do think it is sort of her. It's a perf, not a perfected, but it's a level up version of the initial. And I even think it's leveled up from, you know, a first novel is a first novel. And she says in that interview, Greg, as you might remember, that she was stuffing all kinds of stuff into Amethy cat's pajamas. She was trying to, you know, spin a bunch of plates and juggle and whistle Dixie all at the same time. And I think it works. But as you can see her pair back a little bit in Beauty Land, it's like, okay, we're gonna do a couple characters one can see and just sort of follow it out. And then the Exit Zero really is an accomplished, like, it is a fully mature short story collection version of Bertino.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's a great short story.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think the only thing I would do really is like, if you wanted to go back, there's one short story in. I mean, if you like all them, go read Safest House. You're not gonna be disappointed but you're like, oh, yeah, this is her first short story collection. Collection that's going to feel right. There's the short story in Safest Houses. I think it's called north of the one where the woman brings Bob Dylan home to try to impress her brother. And it doesn't go amazing if I swap. If I could swap that out for the Cheers one because it's kind of doing the same thing of the pop culture dudes and like, you know, whatever, but like, yeah, something like that would work. I think going from a novel to a short story in a writer's works can be a little jarring. It can feel like a come down for me at least, especially as accomplished at Beautyland is Parakeet's pretty strange. It's quite a bit stranger. It's like four or five of the stranger short stories strung together. Where Beautyland is one of the less strange short stories. Taken further. I'm not, I'm not describing the books. I don't think that's helpful. So if you can add 1, exit 0, I think, over Beautyland for one. That sounds weird coming out of my mouth, Rebecca.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I mean, I really think it's like, do you want to get like the full like warmth of Beauty Land and her storytelling powers? But in that case, you might want to start with 2am at the Cat's Pajamas because you will see how it evolves when you go to Beauty Land. I don't know what it would be like to go backwards from beauty land to 2am at the Cat's Pajamas.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I think if you just go.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Read 2am at the Cat's Pajamas, it's a great.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I'm all the way around. I think if you're going to add one, it's Beauty Land. But if you think you're going to read a bunch or you're going to start Exit Zero, this is. I've gone nowhere. I'm worse, truly.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

How you know that she's great is that we can't decide what to do here. Like, there are compelling arguments for several.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I think it's. It's pretty clearly Exit Zero, Beauty Land. So let your. Let your format be your guide. If you're a short story person, Exit Zero. If you're more of a novel person, be. Maybe that's.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think that's right.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Putting it there. Okay, we're done.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Good luck to y'all out there.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, let us know. We always enjoy Follow on. We always like to know how the, how our little baby recommendations went in the wild. We'll be back with regular. Let's see, what are we doing next? I'm out next. The news, the news. A regular ass show. What do you know over there? But thank you all so much over listening. Happy days and transitions and good luck to all. Stay safe out there and read something really cool and let us know about it when you do. Rebecca, we'll talk to you later.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

All right. Thanks so much for listening today. We hope you'll enjoy this audiobook. Excerpt from Truth Demands A Murder of Murder, Oil wars, and the Rise of Climate justice by Abby Reyes thanks to our sponsors at North Atlantic Books When.

[D]

I was 25, my life became beholden to a set of murders near indigenous territory in Colombia, land then coveted by a US based oil company. My partner in work and life, Terrence Unity Freitas, was slain along with Ingrid Washnawatuk and Lahe Ennege. I walked into adulthood through the gates of these murders. In those years I felt pressed up against the machinery of fossil fuel extraction, tied there by the murder's known and unknown dismal facts. These circumstances sped up my training as a human being. I found myself unbidden in a wretched lineage of people paying the price of our oil wars and living with ambiguous loss. As with so many others before me, the murders forced me to learn basic practices for moving through grief and ambiguity that otherwise might have taken a lifetime to learn. Here I share stories of learning these practices for survival. My hope is that they may be of use as we collectively navigate the climate catastrophe that is already baked in, dedicate ourselves to averting the worst, and co create the course corrections we need. I held fragments of these stories for years, awaiting resolution that never came. Shaping the fragments into this book changed my understanding of resolution. Questions about the murders may always remain unaddressed. Some stories may never be told, and the future will remain unknowable. To offer this telling, I had to acquiesce to these truths. Acquiescence led to acceptance, which stirred my memory of agency. Finding agency in the telling led to my freedom, for it opened a back door to resolution. These stories move between my ongoing work for both personal and collective transformation. In my early adulthood, I was not only concerned with securing justice for the murders in a narrow sense, I was also committed to helping tip the scales toward social and environmental equilibrium in a global sense. As a strategy of collective liberation, I diligently cultivated a vision of the future in which murders like this no longer happen. For decades I have worked for a vision of the future in which we transition as a species from economies of extraction, militarism and exploitation conditions that lead to murders like this in the first place to regenerative and resilient living economies of interdependence. Multiple, coexisting contemporary progressive social movements advance this vision. This vision is rooted in long standing work of place based communities around the world to assert dignity in the face of extractive industry aggression against their lands, waters, bodies and cultures, including that of the Colombian Pueblo uwa, indigenous to the territory where the murders took place.